Manual High School, home to top debaters Theron and Teague Harrison and a school with a long history of struggle, has picked a new principal: Brian Dale, who currently serves as assistant principal at Bruce Randolph School, another acclaimed “turnaround” story…
Theron and Teague Harrison, Manual High School’s all-star brother-sister debate team and Westword cover siblings, are going to the Urban Debate National Championship in New York City next month. The pair snagged second place at the Denver Urban Debate League City Championship this past Saturday, losing in the finals to…
This week’s cover story, “Say What?,” tells the story of the Manual High School debate team and specifically, brother-sister debaters Theron and Teague Harrison. Westword hung out with the team all year, watching as they practiced and competed, and won and lost. Why do the students participate in debate? Here…
More than one-hundred Denver high schoolers will spend all day Friday and Saturday talking about military spending, nuclear proliferation and dehumanization. It’s all part of the Denver Urban Debate League’s end-all, be-all tournament: the City Championship. Read about the league and two of its stars, Teague and Theron Harrison of…
The drama around the effort to recall Denver Public Schools board president Nate Easley has reached a new low. We recently learned of a blog called “Decline to Sign — Easley for Better Schools.” The first words on the homepage are this: “I’m Dr. Nate Easley, and I am on…
Good news from Denver Public Schools headquarters: In the past five years, the district’s dropout rate has declined 42 percent. In the 2005-06 school year, 11.1 percent of students dropped out. In the 2009-10 school year, 6.4 percent of students dropped out. In real numbers, that means an estimated 1,700…
The effort to recall Denver Public Schools board president Nate Easley has created some odd side dramas. One of them resulted in the outing of Linda Wagner, an Estes Park doggie day care owner and staunch Democrat who blogs on ColoradoPols under the pseudonym “Middle of the Road.” Or did,…
Nate Easley is fighting back. The Denver Public Schools board president is the subject of a recall effort backed by voters unhappy with some of his policies, especially his votes to shutter under-performing schools. Recall proponents have until the end of March to collect 5,363 signatures in order to place…
Update below: New stats show that 72.4 percent of Colorado high school students graduated “on time” in 2010. In other words, 72.4 percent of freshman who started high school in the fall of 2006 donned caps and gowns in the spring of 2010. But is this better or worse than…
Former Denver mayor Wellington Webb is standing up for Nate Easley, the Denver Public Schools board president who’s the target of a recall. That effort was initiated by failed school board candidate John McBride, who once served under Webb. Now, proponents are working to collect the required 5,363 signatures. But…
Update five: Recall proponents are hard at work gathering signatures. But it hasn’t always been easy. See more below our fourth update. Update four: The petition to initiate the recall process has been approved. See more below our third update…
When some Denver-area schools are closed due to weather, they’re usually all closed. But today, Denver Public Schools went rogue, holding classes despite the second day of cold-related closures by other major districts. DPS spokesman Michael Vaughn says parental gripes have gone both ways this week…
Update: Easley responds to DeFENSE Denver below our original item. DeFENSE Denver, a self-described coalition of parents, students and educators, is one of the forces behind the recent recall attempt of Denver Public Schools board president Nate Easley. And the group has not taken kindly to the Denver Post calling…
Last year, Westword profiled Andrea Merida, a Denver Public Schools board member who caused a stir in 2009 when she had herself secretly sworn in. Last year, a few voters tried to recall her after she wrote a negative op-ed about a senate candidate without revealing that she was working…
The neighborhood icon pictured above was inspired by the original logo used by Perl-Mack Homes Inc. to market its newest housing development in 1966. After the success of building Northglenn and Southglenn (now Centennial), Perl-Mack developed a suburban-style housing development east of then-Stapleton International Airport. Cut off from the city…
Jefferson County school board member Laura Boggs has been so disruptive this year that she inspired a teachers’ union-produced newsletter called Boggs Watch that is dedicated to keeping an eye on her antics. But Boggs isn’t just on the union’s naughty list. She’s also drawn criticism from teachers, parents, her…
You could groan at all his time-tested jokes and silly props — the red nose, the garish ties, the tiny kazoo and corny sight gags — and still end up howling with laughter and holding your aching sides. Any way you look at it, Earl Reum, the dynamic Denver educator…
Colorado’s Board of Education recently added social studies to its new testing system — a move that may prevent more geography horror stories like professor Aimee Pellet’s. She described a recent map test on which one student labeled the Rocky Mountains “the Alps,” another ID’d Alaska as “Germany” and a…
In these dark economic times, it’s a relief to learn that at least some hard-working students are moving straight from graduation to immediate and steady employment in a booming industry. Qualifications: Four legs, good communication skills, familiarity with the demands of the service sector, dogged determination — and a big…
The college searches of six Cherry Creek High School students are getting national exposure thanks to “The Choice,” a New York Times blog series starting today — and it’s a win-win situation. Why? Do the math…
Andrea Merida, the controversial Denver Public Schools board member, survived a recall attempt this week when the voters asking for her removal didn’t collect enough signatures — although that’s not the way recall organizer Jose Silva explained the situation in two e-mails to Westword. In fact, he sounded a bit…
An attempt to recall controversial Denver Public Schools board member Andrea Merida appears to have failed. The three southwest Denver voters who asked for the recall had until Monday to submit a petition complete with the signatures of 4,342 voters in Merida’s district. According to Nancy Reubert of the Denver…
